Saturday, September 19, 2009

If you do not want to hear about my insides, kindly disregard this post.

The surgery was a success! That being said, I feel like I survived the most punishing ab-bootcamp ever invented by the U.S. armed forces and have nothing to show for it but 4 small stab wounds. They removed my gallbladder laprascopically, through a 2 inch incision in my belly button and made 3 more small incisions around my abs for sport. You can watch a video filmed by my doctor if you dare. Turns out, not only was the duct blocked by a very large gallstone, but I had several more small stones in there too. It was all so infected that it had adhered in a whole bunch of places not only to my liver, but also to my stomach. This stinking gallbladder had actually pulled my stomach out of place! I will not even describe to you what they found inside the thing, but my doctor was pretty shocked. Apparently I really should have been so jaundiced that I glowed in the dark for the last year or two. I guess I am so pale that nobody would have noticed!

I spent one very, very long sleepless night in the hospital. I gave the hospital staff quite a scare when I had a bad reaction to the anesthesia several hours after I woke up. Turns out that because I am such a good girl (I don't smoke, drink, eat a lot of processed food, take medications etc) my body could not process all the chemicals from the surgery. I suddenly couldn't breath, started convulsing, and lost feeling in my arms and legs. They took an emergency EKG that showed a heart arrhythmia. That was petrifying, but it passed. My nurse, who has been in the field for nearly 15 years, said that I was the only time she ever saw anyone have that reaction.

After a day, my mom took me back to her house I spent two days being a lump on her couch. Each day I have been getting a little stronger. Last night I was well enough to come back to Grandma's house and sleep in my own bed and see my bunny-babies. Now I am sitting around, hoping people will visit me. I not supposed to leave the house or get out of bed much until my follow up appointment on Wed.

When all is said and done, I do have the gallstone in a little jar. I think I should make a necklace...